Kota suicides not linked: Supreme Court refuses to pause NEET counselling

The Supreme Court on Friday said the suicides in Kota were not due to NEET-UG 2024 results, and that the petitioners seeking a CBI probe into the alleged irregularities in the exam should not make such emotional arguments.

NEET 2024 controversy

The court's remark came while the vacation bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta took objection to a submission made by one of the counsels for petitioners, saying that students at coaching centres in Kota were dying by suicide.

Remarking that the suicides in Kota were not due to NEET-UG 2024 results, Justice Nath said to the counsel, "don't make unnecessary emotional arguments here."

Later, the bench also issued a notice on the pleas seeking a CBI probe.

While the National Testing Agency (NTA) was directed to file a response within two weeks, other respondents (Centre) were given time until July 8, the next date of hearing.

The counsel pressed that petitioners were seeking a CBI investigation into the alleged paper leak, to which Justice Nath observed that the NTA's response on the same was necessary before any order was passed.

In response, the counsel highlighted that the petitioners were seeking other "imminent" reliefs as well, such as NTA furnishing details of the entire examination pertaining to every candidate before counselling begins in July."It's the future of 24 lakh students...", he urged.

"We understand that... we are conscious of all that", remarked Justice Nath, before saying that all arguments shall be raised on 8 July.

The court today heard seven writ petitions in the NEET case.

One of the petitions, filed by two NEET-UG candidates, also raised allegations of exam centre manipulations in the exam.

As an example, the petitioners also raised suspicions about students from states like Odisha, Karnataka and Jharkhand choosing a particular centre at Godhra, Gujarat.